With the first of the forced English rhubarb now for sale in the shop, it would be silly not to be using it in our weekly baking. This recipe is taken from the BBC Good Food website, utilises the rhubarb as well as adding some of our delicious Thursday Cottage lemon curd… plus we all need cake on a wet March day right!?

For this recipe you will need the following (all of which we stock in the farm shop):

• 225g unsalted butter (plus a little extra to grease the cake tin)
• 225g caster sugar
• The zest of 1 lemon
• 4 medium eggs beaten – we recommend our new Conservation Grade Free Range Eggs from Dinton Farm
• 75g ground almond
• 200g self-raising flour
• 140g British forced rhubarb – washed and chopped into small pieces
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar

And for the topping:

• 75ml double cream – we recommend Laceys local cream
• 3 tbsp lemon curd (plus a little extra for drizzling) we recommend Thursday Cottage

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Method:

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius or gas mark 4. Lightly grease a deep, round 20cm cake tin and line with a circle of baking paper.
2. Whisk butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy, then add the caster sugar and lemon zest before beating again. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture slowly, beating well until fully combined. The mixture will begin to look glossy – if it starts to curdles then beat in a spoonful of ground almonds and continue to add the egg until all combined.
3. Stir in the ground almonds, then the flour and fold everything carefully together using a large spoon. Fold through half the rhubarb, transfer the mixture into the tin and then scatter the remaining rhubarb. Finish with the demerara sugar sprinkled on top. Bake cake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Transfer to wire rack to cool slightly in the tin, then remove from the tin. Wait until cold to add the topping.
4. Whip the cream in a large bowl until it forms soft peaks. In a small bowl, loosen the lemon curd with about 1 tbsp water and carefully fold it through the cream without overworking. Spread over the cake, drizzle with a little more lemon curd and serve immediately.
5. Enjoy!